"Posterity, you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that ever I took half the pains to preserve it." -John Adams

Welcome to Patriot's Lament. We strive here to educate ourselves on Liberty. We will not worry ourselves so much with the daily antics of American politics, and drown ourselves in the murky waters of the political right or left.Instead, we will look to the Intellectuals and Champions of Liberty, and draw on their wisdom of what it is to be a truly free people. We will learn from where our Providential Liberties are derived, and put the proper perspective of a Free Individual and the State.Please join us!

Friday, April 22, 2011

The most powerful weapon we have as Americans is something that the normal American sadly dreads and despises and tries his hardest to get out of, and that is the power of the Juror.
You, as the Juror, can overturn Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court of the United States.You are Sovereign, holding Power over the most powerful nation in the world. Your decision is final, you are immune to any and all reprisal. You are the Fourth and most important Branch of government, and are the most important and powerful Branch to the Liberty and Freedom of the People of these united States.
You are the Juror.
The courts don't want you to know this, and do their very best to keep this Power hidden from you, because they fear you, the Juror. They talk over you, they speak down to you, they act overly important, they give themselves titles of nobility, calling themselves "the Honorable" and "Esquires."
They tell you that you must obey all directives given to you by the court, you are not wise enough to act outside of the directives given to you.
But they LIE.
You, the Juror, are under no obligation to listen to the direction of the court. The court is your servant, your employees. You pay their salary; they are UNDER you; they can no more make you follow their will than you can decide which direction the wind blows. They must follow statutes and law. You, the Juror, are the final Judge of that statute and law, and can disregard them at your will.They have dared to bring charge against a Free man or woman, and wish to take away that freedom, and you are the final say of whether the state has the Right to do so.
You are the line in the sand, the protector of your countryman's Liberty. Your decision could be the doom or the Life of your Posterity's Liberty.

We have supposed "Constitutional Scholars" these days that have no regard for this Duty of the Juror, and leaders of both political parties scoff at the idea, and pretend it doesn't exist.

But they are dead wrong.

The very basis and Foundational protector of our Liberty is the right to trial by our Peers. This isn't a trial to decide the facts given to us by a paid government informant (a law officer) or prosecuted by a paid government lawyer (the prosecutor) with the law decided by a paid government judge deciding whether his employer's law is fit or not. This is a Trail in which the accused calls on his fellow countryman to decide whether or not he has committed any harm to another citizen's Life, Liberty or Property.

In the days of the Magna Charta, an official of the crown was not even allowed to bring accusation in the court against the citizen; he was, of course, BIASED.
There had to be 2 or more witnesses against the citizen. Today, the court weighs the testimony of the government's officer heavily over the accused citizen. If the officer claims it, then it happened.

Let's look at the history of the Right and Power of the Juror. It may seem long, but its importance was heavy on our Founders' hearts, and they held it with the highest of the citizen's Duty and Right.
The first instance we find of "Jury nullification" had to do with one of our most Sacred Rights, the Freedom of Worship.
In 1554, a jury acquitted Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who was a Protestant and more than likely was involved with some of the things the Court accused him of. The jury was imprisoned for acquitting him.
In 1649, in the first known attempt to argue for jury nullification, a jury acquitted John Lisburne for his part in inciting a rebellion against Cromwell.
The most famous case, copied here from Wikipedia:

By the late 17th century, the court's ability to punish juries was removed in Bushell's Case[16] involving a juror on the case against William Penn. Penn and William Mead had been arrested in 1670 for illegally preaching a Quaker sermon and disturbing the peace, but four jurors, led by Edward Bushell refused to find them guilty. Instead of dismissing the jury, the judge sent them back for further deliberations. Despite the judge demanding a guilty verdict, the jury this time unanimously found Penn guilty of preaching but acquitted him on the charge of disturbing the peace and acquitted Mead of all charges. The jury was then subsequently kept for three days without "meat, drink, fire and tobacco" to force them to bring in a guilty verdict and when they failed to do so the judge ended the trial. As punishment the judge ordered the jurors imprisoned until they paid a fine to the court. Four jurors refused to pay the fine and after several months, Edward Bushell sought a writ of habeas corpus. Chief Justice Vaughan, sitting on the Court of Common Pleas, discharged the writ, released them, called the power to punish a jury "absurd" and forbade judges from punishing jurors for returning a verdict the judge disagreed with.

At the sedition trial of journalist John Peter Zenger in 1735, Andrew Hamilton recounted the story of the Penn trial to a New York jury and admonished them that whatever the law and facts, they had the right to acquit Zenger if they held that to be the just result. They followed his advice in an outcome that laid the foundation for American press freedom.America’s Founding Fathers made their case to juries arguing for nullification. John Adams, when defending John Hancock in 1771, insisted that the juror has not merely the “right” but actually the “duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court” and its understanding of the law. Conscience should serve as a safety valve, he argued, against unjust laws, or against just laws, unjustly applied.

This was eventually dealt a blow in a case before the Supreme Court in Sparf v US .The judge no longer had the duty to inform the jury of its Right to judge the Law. More recent cases have the court telling us, ( and it's no surprise, the court wants the supreme power in cases of law and is trying to subvert the Citizens' power) that the defendant in a case cannot even bring up the fact that the Jury has the right to nullify the law.
This is nothing more than Tyranny.
Let's see what our Founders felt about it; I could care less what the tyrants today say, in their pseudo intellectualism. They are fools compared to the men who established this Nation.In a rare jury trial in the United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Jay, speaking for a unanimous Court, instructed the jury:

The facts comprehended in the case are agreed; the only point that remains, is to settle what is the law of the land arising from those facts; and on that point, it is proper, that the opinion of the court should be given. It is fortunate, on the present, as it must be on every occasion, to find the opinion of the court unanimous: we entertain no diversity of sentiment; and we have experienced no difficulty in uniting in the charge, which it is my province to deliver.It may not be amiss, here, Gentlemen, to remind you of the good old rule, that on questions of fact, it is the province of the jury, on questions of law, it is the province of the court to decide. But it must be observed that by the same law, which recognizes this reasonable distribution of jurisdiction, you have nevertheless a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy. On this, and on every other occasion, however, we have no doubt, you will pay that respect, which is due to the opinion of the court: For, as on the one hand, it is presumed, that juries are the best judges of fact; it is, on the other hand, presumable, that the court are the best judges of the law. But still both objects are lawfully within your power of decision.

— [Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 1 (1794)]

It is not only his right, but his duty... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court. John Adams

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.Thomas Jefferson

No freeman shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his freehold, or his liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed (harmed), nor will we (the king) proceed against him, nor send any one against him, by force or arms, unless according to (that is, in execution of) the sentence of his peers, and (or or, as the case may require) the Common Law of England, (as it was at the time of Magna Charta, in 1215.)

— Lynsander Spooner's translation of the Magna Charta Chapter 39.

It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge’s view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience. John Adams

There is irrefutable evidence. Look it up for yourselves; it will take you days to gather all the truth in this matter.

The bottom line: our Liberty is so Sacred, that for the government to take that Liberty away, they had better have a darn good reason, and it ultimately is up to the Citizen Juror to decide if the government has the right to do that or not.

Next time you are summoned for Jury duty, do not scorn it or refuse it, do your Duty and PUT THE GOVERNMENT ON TRIAL.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

We are so fooled by the logic that we as citizens have the ultimate power because we can vote.
What a joke.
Don't you realize that you can vote all day long, and even get the one that you voted for and it means nothing?
Absolutely nothing.Has there been any change no matter which party is in power? The democrats and Obama are the scourge of the land and the oppressors? Who was in power before them? Oh yeah, the party that gave us the Patriot Act and NAFTA, and GATT and the WTO.
You tell me, have you voted for anyone at the all powerful EPA? They regulate every bit of your lives and you can do nothing about it. Why does your energy cost so much? EPA regulation. On fuel, emissions, water, air, the EPA is an uncontrolled beast that has no master. They create LAW and you will obey it! They create LAW and it costs you, the lowly serf, not only money, but Liberty.
The ATF? They create LAW! You disobey it, you go to jail. They can change their mind at any time they want, it can be legal today, and put you in jail tomorrow.
Health and Human services? You better raise your child the way they want or you will get them taken away, and you will go to jail.
Wage and Labor? You don't have a right to privately contract with another free man; they set the rules, you better follow them or you will go to jail.
Homeland Security? Was it a lawmaker that was voted in by the people that mandated people flying on commercial airlines must go through a degrading, groping search to fly?
OSHA? Your jobsite had better meet their safety standards, no matter how illogical it is, or you will be put out of business from all the fines they give you.
Federal Reserve? You think they care that your IRA just disappeared? Do they give one flip over "congressional oversight?" You think they care when Congress suggests that they are going to devalue our dollar to the point of no return?
Are you catching on yet? In any of these departments that control every single aspect of your life, and I only covered a few of them, do you have the power to vote one of them out? No. The vote is a joke, to keep the serfs in line, giving us the false hope that they need to just keep obeying the master, 'cause your guy might get in next time. And we have people on both sides of the spectrum (the fact that there are only 2 parties involved should be an eyeopener all on its own) telling us, hyping us, to keep slaving away, next time your vote will count. And we continue, and one side wins, then another, then the other..... it's called insanity. When one continues to do the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome.
Folks, we are serfs. We are slaves. You are not free. Do not think if you stood up for one moment our great leaders wouldn't shut you down, with more ferocity than Mohmar Kahdafi ever dreamed of.
You are allowed to do what they allow you to do. End of story.
And your vote in 2012 won't change a dang thing. Your vote this fall won't change a dang thing. At least not on the National level.
Worry about your own backyard, try to get your local community straightened out at the very most. If not that, get your neighborhood on the same page.If you can't get that done, get on the same page as your neighbor.
Our Founders had knowledge that voting was a sacred principle in government, but they didn't have what we have today; they were a part of a Constitutional Republic. We now live in a democracy, or a "majority vote."
Back then, only folks who held property were even allowed to vote. And the voting was for state officers, who voted for Federal officers. They warned us of the wolf called bureaucracy, but we have ceded to it.
What we have today is what we were warned about.

“A large portion of our citizens, who will not believe, even on the evidence of facts, that any public evils exist, or are impending. They deride the apprehensions of those who foresee, that licentiousness will prove, as it ever has proved, fatal to liberty.”
— Fisher Ames (1758-1808) Founding Father and framer of the First Amendment to the Constitution

"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”— James Madison (1751-1836) Fourth President of the United States

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."— James Madison

"One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation."
— Thomas B. Reed (1839-1902) Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, from Maine

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
Benjamin Franklin

Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic.
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Thinking of mass democracy as government controlled by its employees helps explain the difficulty of changing government policy.
James Davidson

It is the old practice of despots to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order.
Thomas Jefferson

This is a good example of today's voting. I don't deny that voting was once a good thing, but today, it is just an instrument of the government to appease us. To see who can get the most freebies taken from the citizens.

But there is another vote that can still effect change, which we will talk about next time.

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